Do you want to hear another version about the hunting season at a Kansas household for "Closing Time?"
I'm a forty-five year old housewife, an ex-city girl, who never knew the difference between a mallard, a pintail, a woodduck, a dove, let alone a Pointer, a Black Lab, or a 12-gauge or a .22, until I married my hunter twenty-eight years ago. Now the mother of three sons, also avid hunters, I feel I've been through it all.
First, I had to learn to look at a cottontail, that reminded me of the storybook rabbit, with blood-stained fur and limp as a dishrag. I had to do this without throwing up while proud little hunters beamed about their great shots. Then came that cute little brown squirrel that stole most of our walnuts and wound up at our house for dinner one night (not as a guest). But when they brought home the doves, I was heartbroken. I couldn't believe they could eat the dove, a symbol of love. Oh yes, the rule at our house is: you shoot it, you eat it.